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A Critical Study of Ak Ramanujan's Three Hundred Ramayanas

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ISSN (Online) : 2455 - 3662 SJIF Impact Factor :3.967 EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Monthly Peer Reviewed & Indexed International Online Journal Volume: 3 Issue: 7 July 2017 Published By : EPRA Journals CC License SJIF Impact Factor: 3.967 Volume: 3 | Issue: 7 | July 2017 EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) ISSN (Online): 2455-3662 EXPLORING THE JOURNEY OF THE RAMAYANA ACROSS DIFFERENT CULTURES AND LANGUAGES: A CRITICAL STUDY OF A. K. RAMANUJAN’S THREE HUNDRED RAMAYANAS ABSTRACT A. K. Ramanujan’s Three Hundred Rāmāya’ as: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translationis a ground-breaking, staggering literary essay, written for a 1 Oliva Roy conference, which depicts the journey of the Indian epic, 1 The Ramayana throughout the last 2500 years and Research Scholar, across different languages, cultures and geographical Department of Humanities and Social regions. Ramanujan, here speaks of the numerous versions of the epic, Ramayana that existed in the last Sciences 2500 years or even more. Although Valmiki’s Sanskrit NIT Durgapur, version of the epic is the most influential and oldest, there exist 22 versions of Rama’s story in the World. West Bengal, India. Ramayana has been translated into twenty-five languages, and the different versions of the epic contain a rich variety of tales. With every translation, the story of the epic underwent a change. Ramanujan’s essay is concerned with different varied and diverse tellings of the epic, Ramayana. Ramanujan has focused his attention on the five different versions or tellings of the epic, Ramayana and concludes his essay with the remark: ‘Now is there a common core to the Rama’s stories, except the most skeletal set of relations like that of Rama, his brother, his wife, and the antagonist Ravana who abducts her?’1(Ramanujan, 1991). This paper is an attempt to study the different 86elling of Rama’s story in different languages, cultures and different geographical regions, and explore the universality of the Indian Epic, in the light of Ramanujan’s essay, Three Hundred Rāmāya’as: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation. KEYWORDS: Translation, Epic, Diverse, culture, The Ramayana. INTRODUCTION The legend of Rama has influenced every Indian. A. MacDonell rightly stated in the twelve- The enchanting story of Ramayana has become a volume work, Encyclopaedia of Religion and part of the collective unconsciousness of the people Ethics, that „Perhaps no work of World literature, of India. The eternal myth of Ramayana has made secular in origin, has ever produced so profound an its presence glaringly felt in every Indian influence on the life and thought of a people as the Household. Ramayana has made a profound impact Ramayana‟2 (Macdonell, 1916). Ramayana is the on every Indian‟s minds, and that‟s why, attempts most popular and beloved and most read epic not and efforts are continuously made to represent the only in India, but in the whole South-East Asia. legendary story of Ramayana in literature, theatre www.eprajournals.com Volume: 3 | Issue: 7 | July 2017 86 EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) | ISSN (Online): 2455 -3662 | SJIF Impact Factor : 3.967 and various different forms of art. These efforts and A NOTE ON RAMANUJAN’S attempts have led to the creation of almost three THEORY OF TRANSLATION hundred versions of Ramayana. A K Ramanujan‟s A translator is „an artist on oath‟. He has a scholarly and intellectual essay, “Three Hundred double allegiance, indeed, several double Rāmāyaṇas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts allegiances. All to familiar with the rigors on Translation”, begins with the question: and pleasures of reading a text and those How many Ramayanas? Three hundred? of making another, caught between the Three thousand? At the end of some need to express himself and the need to Ramayanas, a question is sometimes represent another , moving between the asked: How many Ramayanas have there two halves of one brain, he has to use both been? And there are stories that answer the to get close to „the originals.‟ He has to let question. Here is one. poetry win without allowing scholarship to Ramanujan‟s essay was written for a lose. Then his very compromises may conference at University of Pittsburgh, on begin to express a certain fidelity, and Comparison of Civilizations. The essay sparked may suggest what he cannot convey3. and elicited much clamour, debates and (Ramanujan, 2011). controversies since its first appearance. The essay Besides being an impressive diasporic became the centre of controversy, in 2011, when poet, A. K Ramanujan is a noted translator too, Delhi University decided to remove the essay from who with the help of his expertise and masterful their History Syllabus. Here in this essay, artistry, has recreated the aura, grandeur and Ramanujan depicts the complex history and the pageantry of the ancient Indian texts. Ramanujan journey of the Indian epic Ramayana in the last translated a number of medieval Tamil and kannad 2500 years or more, across different races, cultures, Bhakti poetry, classical poetry, 19th century religions, geographical places, and different time folktales of South India and a number of Tamil, periods. In this essay, Ramanujan details the Telegu, Malayalam, Sanskrit and Kannad texts into changes, the Indian epic, Ramayana undergone English, which earned him universal acclamation each time; it was translated and rendered in as a great scholar. As a poet, primarily as a different languages and different places, in the last translator, Ramanujan realized and was well-aware 2500 years. In the last 2500 years, the Epic, of the responsibility and critical work of a Ramayana has been translated into a large number translator. Ramanujan „argued that ... a translator of regional languages, such as Tamil, Telegu, carries over a particular text from one culture into Assamese, Oriya, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannad etc. another, he has to translate the reader from the Even a significant number of Sanskrit versions of second culture into the first one‟. Ramanujan‟s the Epic also exist. With each rendition, the actual translated works bear this mark. He has tried to story of Ramayana got moulded to suit the regional move the entire text along with the target audience practices and traditions of the people. Ramanujan to the realm of another culture, and he thought that briefs these renditions in his essay. Although there this can be achieved only through the notes, exists more than three hundred versions of the introductions, comments and prefaces of the Ramayana, Ramanujan concentrates his attention translator. He stated in the preface to on the five important versions of the Ramayana, - Ananthamurthy‟s novel, Samskara, „A translator the original Sanskrit version, the Jain version, the hopes not only to translate a text, but hopes (against Tamil version, Kampan, the Thai Ramakhen and all odds) to translate a non-native reader into a the South Indian folk versions of the epic. native one. The Notes and Afterword in this book Ramanujan not just depicts the different 87elling of are part of that effort‟4 (Ananthamurthy, 1978). the Indian Epic, Ramayana, but, explores the According to Vinay Dharwadker, “In his published difference that exists between these 87elling and work Ramanujan reflected on translation most the original version of the Epic. In this paper, I am often in the context of poetry, and conceived of it going to analyse how these four versions, or in as a multidimensional process in which the Ramanujan‟s words, “telling” of the Ramayana, translator has to deal with his or her material, differ from the Sanskrit telling of Valmiki, and how means, resources and objectives at several levels each rendition has added something new to the simultaneously”. Dharwadker posits that, according Sanskrit version of the epic.The present paper is to Ramanujan, the work of a translator is: divided into the following sections: to render textual meanings and qualities Introduction,Objectives, Methodology, Literature „literally‟, to successfully transpose the Review, Ramanujan‟s Perspective on the different syntax, design, structure or form of the “telling” of the epic Ramayana,Controversy original from one language to another, and encircling Ramanujan‟s Three Hundred to achieve a communicative intersection Ramayanas, Conclusion. between the two sets of languages and discourses. At the same time, the translation has to attempt to strike a balance between the interests of the www.eprajournals.com Volume: 3 | Issue: 7 | July 2017 87 EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) | ISSN (Online): 2455 -3662 | SJIF Impact Factor : 3.967 original author and those of the translator Three Thoughts on Translation” provides a new (or between faithful representation and perspective, a new outlook on thesecountless faithless appropriation), to fulfil the versions or “ 88 elling” of the Ramayana. multiple expectations of its imagined Ramanujan‟s essay is about the different 88elling readers, and to construct parallels between of Ramayana, it raises questions regarding the the two cultures and the two histories or adaptation of the Ramayana story to be retold in traditions that it brings together5. different languages. The age-old tale of Ramayana (Dharwadker, 1994). has been rechanted in myriad ways and using In order to meet the expectations of the different idioms, in the south-East Asia. target readers, Ramanujan always focused his Ramanujan‟s essay starts with one such version or attention on the most accurate, reliable and literal telling of Ramayana. The telling deals with the last translation of the source text. To achieve this, he stage of incarnated Rama‟s sojourn on this earth. advocated a rigorous and time-consuming process This particular telling or version of Rama‟s story of – reading, analysing, drafting, editing and makes it poignantly clear to Hanuman, Rama‟s furbishing, as he stated in the preface to the Poems trusty henchman, that “There have been as many of Love and War, „I began this book of translations Ramayanas as there are rings on this platter”.
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